Friday, February 25, 2011

Main Street Media badly serves the people

Main Street Media is the handmaiden of corporate interests. Consider their coverage of the protests in Wisconsin. There the newly elected governor Scott Walker is trying to impose, in a rump parliament or Black Star Chamber fashion, is radical agenda of denying public workers the right to bargain and to strike. Had he run on this plank during the 2010 elections, it is doubtful he would sit in the governor's seat in Madison.His imperious style of governing -- it's my way or the highway -- has brought tens of thousands into the state capitol, in peaceful, but vocal protest for the last 13 days. Not only that, the Democratic state senator have fled the state to deny Walker is way, thereby condemning the governor's bill to limbo.The state assembly, however, after the valiant effort of the minority Democratic representatives, who 'parliamented' against the bill for some 60 hours, saw the autocratic hand of the radical Republicans who pushed the vote through. To the credit of four Republicans, who voted 'nay', the party showed a slight crack among its members.Now, the public workers unions have acceded to Walker's demands on pensions and healthcare contributions, but not to his stripping them of hardwon rights. Walker,who keeps harping on the state's deficit,has himself helped increased it by immediately signing off on big perks to business. In what was a major scoop, the media buried the story in the inside pages or simply not covered it: a wag posing as one of the Koch brothers, a pair of ultra conservative and right wingers, spoke with Walker on the telephone at a time when the governor was talking to no one. The Kochs have bankrolled Walker through shell PACs and association in which they're funneling a paltry sum of their vast wealth to further an anti working class and middle class agenda. During that call, Walker admitted to having toyed with the idea of sending in goons to break up the protests, but wiser thinking prevailed that this tilt towards violence would boomerang. Furthermore, unwittingly, Walker revealed his true nature of prostituting himself to the needs of the top one per cent of the population whose wealth is equal to those of 127 million Americans. He is at their beck and call, and more than that, willing to cannibalise the public sectors wealth so that the ultra wealthy and authoritarian leaning clique, get away with the plunder this slave of the super rich is handing them on a golden platter.Did Walker think that he could get away with it? Probably, yes. Voters in 2010 had enough of the lack of jobs and increasing poverty and the loss of living standards. So, they turned to a sorry alternative: the Republicans under the influence of the radical right. Now, in Wisconsin, they know who they put into power. But Walker is not a skilled and even a clever politician, Wisconsinite that he is: he forgot that in the US, it is almost sacred lore that the belief in the right to organise the workplace, to bargain, especially management, in good faith with the workers, and that the law would be there to prevent management from an assault of workers' rights.Walker's confident arrogance did something that the elite fear and hate most: massive, sustained protests which awake the public at large to the dangers the plutocrats represent for them and their children and their grandchildren. An 'educated worker' is a threat to the moneyed elite for he represents 'en masse' the power of the clench fist which can smash the billionaires' glass jaw.Poll after poll has shown that public opinion is against Walker, but without continuing and continuous demonstrations, protests, and the like, this little 'il Duce' might prevail. We are witnessing an assault a la Paul Bremer on the American people with the likes of George Bush & co. furnishing the funds, fooling the dissatisfied Americans who see rightly their way of life diminished and devalued and who turn towards religion and the flag as a safety net. Little do they realise, perhaps until now, how much they are the pawns of the big fish who despise them.Thanks to Walker, he has set the people's hounds on his scent and they won't let him get his way, it is hoped.